Tractor Posts – Page 2 – Mason Bees and Phragmites tubes for sale

Strong west winds fell an old Pear Tree

While we were away, high winds brought a power outage for a day and this casualty: A very old Bosc Pear tree fell over. Today I sawed off the branches and hauled them with the tractor up to the pile for chipping and turning into compost. Some of the 4inch sized branches I have saved for future mushroom logs.

Final Stages- a catchment drainage pipe through barn pasture.

After thegarden fields were levelled, we got a heavy rain. However a afer a few dry days they were still able to finish the drainage ditch in the barn field and install heavy gauge 6 ” PVC drain pipe.

standpipe where drain leaves Alex’s field

water flowing before installing 6″ drain

Leveling the Field

Alex and the backhoe operator were trying to get the leveling done today before the rains are scheduled to arrive.

The Whole Field is Trenched now for Drainage

trenches are backfilled with topsoil while this clay is used to level the field later.

Clearing the topsoil in order to level the lower part of the field

Infilling and leveling with clay so from the trenches so that topsoil can be placed back on top

The roots of the pear trees travel horizontally over 10 metres and the roots of Garry Oaks on the south side of the field travelled even further

Farm Improvements: Drainage.

This summer, our son Alex and his partner Virginie have taken a year off for their Wind-whipped Farm , “the Local Food Box Project,” to improve infrastructure for their farming business. This week it has been the excavation of their garden area for the installation of weeping tile for drainage. The purpose is to allow them to get on the land a month or two earlier in the spring. I took this set of photos to show the extent of the job. It gave us a great opportunity to have a “window into the underground”, and see what the glaciers left 10,000 years ago.

The main collector line starts near the road above the greenhouse.

Moisture around the greenhouse will be partly removed by this curtain drain trench.

Alex holding the rod for the laser level sensor.

Exposing and removing an old bottle dump, (probably 1940s) by the barn

I used the Kyoti for several trenches as well

One trench I exposed got into a bed of sand at a 1.5 metre depth,( piled on the left.)

This morning the slinger sends sand into the trench s to cover the drainage pipes.

The Cranberry Bog

In the spring I purchased one cranberry plant from a local nursery and kept it in the greenhouse over the summer.

It sprouted runners which I embedded in soil in smaller pots around the mother plant. I ended up with 13 pots with multiple new plants per pot.

By the end of September, the mother plant had produced 3 berries and many extra plants.

I dug a small depression above my pond waterfalls, and lined it with old underlay and liner from the previous spillway of the pond.

I made the floor level by flooding it with water and then cutting down the high spots underneath.

The tractor bucket filled the depression with fertile soil and peat moss.

The finished bog planted for next year’s cranberry crop. (Theoretically!) An embedded 5cm drain pipe which will allow overflow to the pond will prevent the soil eroding from the structure.

FOLLOWUP FULL DISCLOSURE: over winter, the rabbits ate them all down so this effort was a failure!!

Redesign of the waterworks at the Pond

I was never happy with the fountain I had constructed originally when I built the pond. It was more or less a temporary solution. So last week I decided to redo it.

2015-09-10-dig-newm — Digging the path through where the old waterfall was to make what will be a series of 5 waterfalls at the north end of the pool.

2015-09-14underlyingwater-works — The underlying piping infrastructure. Included are a 2″ intake from the pond, a 2″ intake for winter intake from surface water flowing down the south side of the property, a line to three 3/4′ output pipes to spray water back into the pond, a 3”drain for winter water input from the field above the pond, an electrical line from the pump motor leading to an outdoor plugin above the pond, and a water input line to supply evaporative loss from the pond when the two upper storage tanks from winter rains run out. .

At the top end, connection to electrical and water drainage.

2015-09-17waterworks — The pipes are all covered now and concrete dams are built. Today some final stone placement is left to do before the cascade through the 5 pools for the water entry to the pond is finished. The orange level is to try to keep the lips of each pool horizontal.

The spillway outlet for the pond originally ran out the south end of the pond and this work is on the North end. Now it remains to remove the rocks from the old spillway, install a 4 inch underground drain, and backfill the trench and lower pumping pond.